A University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point alumna is among 102 kindergarten through sixth-grade teachers nationwide to be named a 2012 recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. Cathy Fernan, a 1980 graduate from the School of Education, was notified of the 2012 Presidential Teaching award in mid-December.
Fernan, of Milton, will receive $10,000 from the National Science Foundation and will be invited to Washington, D.C., for an awards ceremony and several days of education and celebratory events. The award, which is considered the highest national honor for math and science teaching, is awarded biennially to grade-school level teachers by the president of the United States.
Fernan reports she has been having fun with mathematics and her students for 26 years. She currently teaches at Northside Intermediate School in the Milton School District. She has led several Family Math Nights and especially reaches out to parents to guide them through the “new way” mathematics is taught. She has been a teacher for the Yerkes Astrophysics Academy for Young Scientists, is involved with the district’s math curriculum adoption committee, and earned National Board Certification in 2004. She holds a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from the UW-Stevens Point and a master’s of education degree in interdisciplinary studies in curriculum and instruction from National Louis University.